The parkas made by luxury outwear brand Canada Goose have climbed Mount Everest, survived winter in Antarctica and raced the Iditarod in Alaska. Now the company will see how its coats weather a challenging retail environment: a New Jersey shopping mall with fierce competition for affluent customers.

The first Canada Goose store in the state opens Friday at The Mall at Short Hills, and it brings a blast of cold air with it. The 5,330-square-foot store has a refrigerated "cold room," decorated with blocks of ice and ice sculptures, where customers can test parkas and down vests in temperatures as low as 13 below zero.

The cold room, which the company unveiled Wednesday night in a pre-opening event, is roughly the size of a walk-in closet and uses fans to replicatethe windchill effect. On Wednesday night, the cold room still hadn't cooled down to sub-zero temperatures. It started at a relatively balmy 23 degrees and dropped to 17 within an hour.

The cold room is designed to give shoppers an experience that will enticethem into the store, said Rick Wood, chief commercial officer for Canada Goose.

"What gets you out of your house and makes you want to go to the store? It's an experience you can't get on your phone, your tablet or your computer," Wood said.

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Blogger Tammy Leopaldi, left, checks out the Cold Room with Nardrina Howerton, senior brand ambassador at the Canada Goose store in Short Hills Mall on Wednesday. Luxury parka brand Canada Goose is opening its first NJ store at The Mall at Short Hills Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com

Rick Wood, Chief CCO of Canada Goose, speaks at soon to be open store in Short Hills. Luxury parka brand Canada Goose is opening its first NJ store at The Mall at Short Hills Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com

Alex Haddad, a fashion influencer of Union, NJ., checks out the parkas at the Canada Goose store in Short Hills Mall on Wednesday. Luxury parka brand Canada Goose is opening its first NJ store at The Mall at Short Hills Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com

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Short Hills is the first of the company's eight stores worldwide to open with a cold room. The company added a cold room to an existing store in Boston to test the concept, and it now plans to add them to future stores.

The other Canada Goose stores are in major cities. Short Hills, the brand's first suburban mall location, joins New York, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Calgary, London and Tokyo as the only places with Canada Goose stores. The company is also preparing to open stores this fall in Montreal and Vancouver, and later in Hong King and Beijing.

And like those other locations, the Canada Goose store in Short Hills can expect protests from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the animal rights group that has targeted Canada Goose for its use of down and coyote fur.

Alex Haddad, a fashion influencer of Union, NJ., checks out the parkas at the Canada Goose store in Short Hills Mall on Wednesday. Luxury parka brand Canada Goose is opening its first NJ store at The Mall at Short Hills(Photo11: Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com)

Christina Sewell, assistant manager of fashion campaigns for PETA, said the group has activists ready to conduct protests throughout the winter at Short Hills and the other new stores.

With other fashion brands such as Burberry, Gucci and Michael Kors dropping fur, Sewell said, "we do believe that it's just a matter of time that Canada Goose follows suit."

Canada Goose maintains that its down and coyote fur are ethically and humanely sourced, and that those materials are essential to the warmth of their signature parkas. The coats have booklets attached that explain the company policy on fur and down, and describe how the fur trim around the hood disrupts air flow and protects the face from frostbite.

Down and fur are part of the 61-year-old company's history and culture, along with its commitment to making all of its parkas, vests and sweaters in Canada. The company was launched in the 1950s, selling snowmobile suits and other winter gear. In the 1970s it pioneered a volume down-filling machine. In the 1980s it created its Expedition parka for scientists in Antarctica. In the 2000s its parkas had starring roles in movies and became known as the favorite cold-weather coats for Hollywood stars and film crews.

Luxury parka brand Canada Goose is opening its first NJ store at The Mall at Short Hills, NJ. (Photo11: Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com)

One of the parkas at the Short Hills mall is the Mystique, a full-length women's parka designed for actress Rebecca Romijn to wear off-camera when she was filming "X-Men 2" in Canada, where she played Mystique while dressed in little more than body paint. It sells for $1,050.

Parka prices range from $650 to $1,300, and the company says its prices reflect the higher cost of making quality goods in Canada.

At Short Hills, Canada Goose joins luxury retailers such as Prada, Cartier, Dior and Chanel, as well as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, which also sell Canada Goose coats.

Luxury parka brand Canada Goose is opening its first NJ store at The Mall at Short Hills, NJ. (Photo11: Marko Georgiev/NorthJersey.com)

Canada Goose's Wood said he likes that Short Hills is a luxury mall "but also a very local mall."

"This feels like somewhere people from New Jersey come to shop," he said, as opposed to the urban locations, which draw tourists and other out-of-town visitors.

To commemorate the New Jersey store, Canada Goose created a special "city toque" — a wool hat stitched with the words "New Jersey" and the brand logo — that will be sold at the store while supplies last.

The store will open to the public Friday at 10 a.m. Instead of a ribbon cutting, the store will hold an "ice-chipping" ceremony, with ice surrounding an ice sculpture chipped away to reveal the logos of Canada Goose and Short Hills Mall.